


petit danceur

by flyingisabetterwordforfalling (FlyingFalling)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Male Character, Dancing Lessons, M/M, Queer Themes, Students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 04:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5898628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingFalling/pseuds/flyingisabetterwordforfalling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was not that he wanted to apologize. He was doing this for the sake of their group. Courfeyrac had told him that Grantaire tended to visit their local dance school after his classes. According to Courfeyrac he even helped out and worked with some children and teenagers who lived in the banlieues. Had Combeferre not confirmed his statement Enjolras would still have his doubts.<br/>Now he stood in said school -for the sake of the group, he reminded himself, and not because he felt guilty. Maybe just a little bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	petit danceur

It was not that he wanted to apologize. He was doing this for the sake of their group. Courfeyrac had told him that Grantaire tended to visit their local dance school after his classes. According to Courfeyrac he even helped out and worked with some children and teenagers who lived in the banlieues. Had Combeferre not confirmed his statement Enjolras would still have his doubts.  
Now he stood in said school -for the sake of the group, he reminded himself, and not because he felt guilty. Maybe just a little bit.

After asking around and mentioning Grantaire, he had been directed to a large room which seemed to be the ballroom. Enjolras did not even knew if the title was correct, he did know some dance styles but had not been near a dancing school since his childhood. At the age of almost ten he refused to go there even one more time. He threatened to take ballet classes knowing his parents would rather have him leave his dance classes altogether and they had forced him to take fencing lessons instead. Something where he could fight, be stereotypically male. He would have worn a tutu just to prove his point and still would. Not that there was anything wrong with it.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- 

For a a few seconds Enjolras assumed Grantaire would merely be lying on the ground, slightly exhausted after a workout, while listening to the melody filling the room.  
Curled up in a ball, his legs almost touching his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs. But then Grantaire rolled onto his side, was suddenly huddled with his head down on the floor.  
His feet left the ground seconds later, carrying him through the hall in graceful movements.  
Complicated arm movements followed his steps and Enjolras, completely stunned by what he saw had no other choice than to stand there, watching him. Dancing, Grantaire danced, his brain needed some time to actually realise.

Most of the time Granatire's eyes were closed, his facial expression resembling his movements.  
Every so often he radiated strength, then vulnerability. Towards the end, he slowed down, his hands dug into his hair as he continued dancing seemingly staggering.  
While in motion, eventually Grantaire did a wobbly handstand. Enjolras was about to run to him as Grantaire fell back while appearing to contort his face in pain and finally ended in doing the splits, almost lasciviously slow.  
What confused Enjolras the most was the satisfied smile that graced his lips. As far as he could remember he had never seen that smile. He knew the amused, the drunken smile of Grantaire, but he had never seen him smile with happiness -at least not as honest as it seemed now.

"What are you standing around there, 'Ponine?" Grantaire spoke eventually, a hint of amusement in his voice, but still a little breathless. Enjolras felt that he was blushing slightly -if he was not completely red in the face already.

"Shouldn't you-," the dancer abruptly closed his mouth as he opened his eyes and saw Enjolras, through the mirror, standing behind him. Again something flickered almost timid in his eyes, his facial expressions and overall his complete posture. But it disappeared just as quickly as it had while he was dancing.  
In a few moments the usual indifferent mask covered his face, which Enjolras had, before he had visited him here, still considered to be honest. Before he discovered it was in fact false, revealing the most diverse emotions lying hidden underneath it.

"You're dancing." Enjolras managed to say. There was no question. Enjolras already felt like an idiot the moment he spoke. It was obvious, he knew now that Grantaire in his spare time actually did help out at the dance school. 

"Obviously.", uttered Grantaire as an answer, he still merely looked at him trough the mirror, as if he feared to turn around and actually look him in the eye. 

"You, uh ... you're good."

Grantaire sighed, raised an eyebrow. He did not believe him, Enjolras did not even attempt to interpret his expression, his doubt could be seen clearly enough.

"As much as it honors me, oh Enjolras, I doubt that you're here to tell me that." 

He sounded almost as he did during their arguments. Something was different, Enjolras did not fail to notice the piercing undertone was gone and was almost completely replaced by exhaustion.

"Grantaire, ... I'm here to apologize."

The dancer snorted, and rose. As he moved away from Enjolras he still turned his back on him. His bare feet carried him again -for Enjolras unfamiliar gracefully- across the room, to turn off the music.

"Please excuse me for drooping such a remark," Enjolras raised an eyebrow due to the lack of an sarcastic undertone, "But as much as I enjoy arguing with you, oh fearless leader, not here. So Enjolras -Why are you actually here?"

Enjolras narrowed his eyes. There it was, the sarcasm completely with the nickname he had been trying to get rid of for years. He bit back an honest answer, let alone his urge to snarl at Grantaire. This would not end in another argument, simply because Grantaire once again would not listen. Thus Enjolras wore his own mask, swore to himself he would not let Grantaire see how much he actually cared, about everything and also about him. Enjolras seemed to succeed once again, he noticed the almost blank stare and still hoped it would be the opposite. A least a little. He rejected the idea to focus on an answer.

"I was serious. I still am, you're good. And I'm sorry."

"You're wild. Enjolras, no-"

"I was wrong. You do care, you do care for other people. Courfeyrac made an understatement, when he explained, what you are doing here. I've seen the flyers outside. You do not just help out, you're a dancing instructor. You love dancing, right? Of course you do-"

"Enjolras, stop." Grantaire seemed downright trembling in frustration before he continued, zealous to keep his voice down.

"You never listen to me, Enjolras! Not even now, when I'm trying not to give in to you blackmailing me into saying something we both might regret later on! However let me keep the few things I do appreciate and leave!"

He came closer, standing almost directly in front of Enjolras. He had to look up a little, but his anger was unmistakable. Enjolras, however, did not flinch as he never did.

"Oh, and how much you care, Grantaire."

"-Of course, and that's the problem. I care, so much, too much!"

Enjolras now actually stepped back. Grantaires shoulders slumped, his gaze fell to the ground.

"Please just go, Enjolras."

And this time Enjolras did listen to him, he nodded and turned around. Did not look back when the music sounded again, and did not look back as Grantaire began to dance again. Only the almost melancholy melody hinted what was going on in the dancer's mind.  
Grantaire danced on, put his emotions once more in his steps and motions, did not even know whether he was angry or sad. Not even that helped now, even here Enjolras had now invaded his thoughts. He picked himself up again, repeated his dance anew.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Grantaire showed his students a while later, after several demonstrations of different stretching exercises how one managed to do a handstand. He had been in the bathroom for about half an hour, staring at the mirror and trying to calm down and had felt like a fool, as the first of his students were waiting for him when he returned.

Most teenagers and also some of the children were true naturals, but some of them were less and less able to participate in the lessons of the dance school. As their dance instructor and teacher, sometimes even more as a mentor, Grantair felt obliged to not demand the full price for the lessons from the mostly not too wealthy adolescents. He worked more than before, put the money he earlier would have spent on alcohol, to the side for his students. 

For some of them he even paid a few courses completely or at least as much as he could afford out of his own pocket, to make sure they could do what they loved. Besides university he had several part-time jobs, some days he slept just as long as he needed to not fall asleep before he returned home in the evening or early morning. Like that he managed keeping his head above water.  
Grantaire was not by any means struggeling to earn money but he did not want to be a burden on his mother. She had to keep his younger sister at home, at least until she graduated, and she would need the financial support more than he did.

However Joly had asked him to be careful, warned him his lifestyle was unhealthy.

Besides Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Eponine nobody of his other friends knew about him working as a teacher, that eventually he was going to be permantly employed. He had told the others merely he once in a while drew posters or designed flyers for the dancing school. No one asked further and he refused to tell them about it.

Eponine, who danced on occasion and took her younger siblings with her whenever she got the chance to get them out of reach of their parents, had one time even taken Combeferre with her. Between the two there was nothing more than friendship, at least Eponine did not try to flirt with him anymore, not now that she knew Combererre was in a committed relationship. He did not seem to notice her feelings for him, or politely choose to ignore them to not make their friendship difficult in any way.

Meanwhile, Eponine and her still kind of crush talked after some time had gone by, somehow the awkward silence did not occur as often as it had a while ago -Grantaire was happy for her, for finally getting over him. After Marius he hoped she would finally meet someone who would want to get to know her, date her. At least Combeferre's boyfriend, a fellow member of the student's group Grantaire had joined almost a year ago, seemed to be as smitten by him, as Combeferre was by him. Even he had already gone through a few dance lessons.  
Courfeyrac and Combeferre made a lovely couple on the dance floor, when they actually had time to take ballroom dancing courses together.

His students had reacted better than Grantaire expected when the two men joined his weekend courses, rather his Saturday evening courses for a while. After explaining several dances, including the tango were originally danced by men, his students fell silent completely. He soon learned to have misunderstood their excited chatter.  
After that evening, surprisingly even more young people went to his dance classes, they were no longer only from the banlieus. 

Grantaire quickly found out that Saturdays were now called Queer Dance evenings. The first one to start these evenings was a girl who had to hide her sexuality around her religious family and asked him if she could bring her partner. Her partner turned out to be her girlfriend and Grantaire just smiled at them, told them he was the last one to mind them dancing or being together. The following Saturday he wore his own bisexuality pride badge.  
Then more and more young people came with their same-sex partners, as well as young people with the most diverse sexualities and gender identities.

Still Grantaire refused to tell Enjolras or even another person of their group about it. It was not that he did not trust them, by now he called most of them his friends. He just knew most of his students preferred to wait to come out and felt safe here, being with other people, other teenagers who were just like them. Grantaire knew he would do everything he could to make sure this feeling would not deaden.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Today no couples swirled around the room, his students were much younger. Azelma danced with her brother Gavroche, led him across the dance floor. Grantaire smiled at the sight, the two still argued about who got to led, no matter how many times he declared that one could choose their role and swap whenever they wanted -no matter what the rules said.

Gavroche liked Hip Hop much better than couple dance, but was satisfied that expressionist dancing was variable. His sister was overall not all too much interested in dancing. Nevertheless Grantaire had put the siblings in the same dance class, at least as long as they were learning the basics. He wanted his students to learn how important it was to trust each other, learned how to build and expand confidence, in themselves as well as in one another.

So for a few hours, he focused on his students, pushed Enjolras and their confrontation out of his thoughts. From the long day exhausted, but full of pride for his students he turned his phone back on after his last class had ended. He frowned when he noticed the myriad of messages. All of them were from Enjolras, expect the ones from Combeferre who had texted him in lieu of Enjolras, asking him to answer his best friend. The undecleared leader of their group had probobaly sent him one of his speeches. With one final look at his phone he deleted the messages.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

About a week later, the two were talking again. Enjolras was mad at him for being ignored and finally snapped at him, stating Grantaire could ignore him as long as he wished to do so but he at least should think of the others. Said others had already left the cafe where they held most of their meetings.

Grantaire had promised to design the posters for their next upcoming demonstration, which should then be labelled by Feuilly and Jehan. As much as he enjoyed teasing Enjolras, he did not want to disappoint his friends. Grantaire therefore was not fond of the idea, but Enjolras was right. 

Grantaire was running late and kept looking at his watch. To make matters worse, he had forgotten some of the posters in his apartment before rushing out, to not arrive too awfully late at the dancing school. However he would have to go all the way back before the group meeting started in a few hours to get them. 

Then Enjolras had called, which in itself showed how annoyed he was.  
Usually, he wrote a message, but this time he had called directly. His students looked at Grantaire quizzically when he excused himself and left the room briefly. 

The conversation was short and before Grantaire could speak again, Enjolras had assured him he would come directly to him, the dance studio, to take the posters so Grantaire would not have to end his course prematurely to rush back home.  
Grantaire had rolled his eyes and stared at his cell phone, as Enjolras hung up without another word or letting him explain that he left almost half of them at his apartment and that he still would have to go back.

"That's it for today! The next group will be here in a few minutes. All of you were especially great today. -Have a nice weekend and see you next time.”

He said his usual goodbye with a sincere grin, careful to look at every student in the room, showing every single one exactly how proud he was of them. Grantaire still had not become accustomed to the enthusiasm with which the students responded, wishing him a nice week while bidding their goodbyes as well.

"See you next week, Monsieur." 

They finally chorused, and Grantaire blushed slightly before he shooed his students out of the room.

A little later his next group of students arrived. Some of them almost timidly entered the room, but most of these teenagers hurried with a beaming smile to their dance partners once they had spotted them among the group of other dancers. 

Grantaire smirked, it was nice to know that these young people, at least here, could be themselves without having to hide a part of their personaitly, rather an important part of themselves.

A young dancer had approached him, had taken a deep breath and asked to be addresed as she and her today, and Grantaire just nodded and let her run back to her partner, with a reliefed smile on her lips.  
He asked for silence, telling his students a little about his friend Jehan, without mentioning their name, and that gender roles were overrated anyway.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He had just finished his little speech when he noticed a new visitor -who seemed a bit out of place, leaning against the wall near the doorway- waiting for him. 

"I'll be right back, just repeat the steps from last week for a while."

He hastened to approach Enjolras and shoved him gently out of the room.

"The meeting had to be cancelled. Feuilly had to stand in for a colleague and Jehan became suddenly ill, and the others have absolutely no time to meet up before the demonstration starts. Would it be possible that you label the, as you said, almost finished posters? It's not all of them, I know, but at least we won't be empty-handed..."

Grantaire had to control himself, so he would not roll his eyes but sighned at Enjolra's very own version of a greeting.

"I see you weren't joking about meeting me here. ...Enjolras, no. I can not even attend the demonstration tomorrow. -Which I've told you already. The little ones have a competition and I have to, let alone want to be there."

Enjlras managed a ruefull look, as Grantaire mentioned his students and his expression changed into a critical look, knowing this face Grantaire for once was not worried about being criticized himself -he knew Enjolras was simply reconsidering his plans.

"Do you happen to know a person, who would consider helping us out with the posters at the very last minute?"

Grantaire thought about it for a moment, then turned back to the ballroom.

"Wait here.", he told Enjolras as he already started to protest at Grantaire abandoning him.

 

That was how Grantaire found himself beside Enjolras on the floor of the dance hall, his Queer Dance group around them, spending half of their dance lesson on helping their teacher add the finishing touch to the posters. His paints and brushes had been in one of the cabinets of the dance studio anyway, which he would need once more to work on other, new flyer designs with the younger students.

Grantaire promised to charge his entire group half the price or even less, and as he mentioned this to Enjolras a girl overheard his words and shook her head in disbelief. They wanted to help him, return the favour, because he did so much to help them, she went on, as Grantaire tried to clarify his position. She simply kept glaring at him, her partner awkwardly patting her shoulder. Grantaire finally sighned, thanked them and continued painting -ignoring their triumphant smiles. Teenagers.

Enjolras looked at him from the side, smiled a little and nodded.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Glad that this was his last course for the evening, Grantaire soon after bid his adieu to the group of teenagers. One of the boys hugged him and introduced another one as his boyfriend, telling Grantaire with a shy smile they had meet here a few months ago, before he pulled his boyfriend out of the room, never actually letting go of his hand.

Then Grantaire was alone with Enjolras, looked once again around the room. He could not hold back a grin. The posters were spread out on the floor, would hopefully dry before the demonstration started in the morning and Enjolras still walked around the room, gathering up brushes and paints.

"Thank you." murmured Enjolras, as he stopped beside him, handing everything to Grantaire.

"Buy me a drink, preferably a coffee, and then I might think about it. You owe my kids an hour, Enjolras.", he retorted half-sarcastically.

"Okay, then I'll get the posters tomorrow. And we go out before the demonstration starts...?"

Grantaire blinked, surprised that Enjolras actually agreed, but somehow managed to regain his composure.

"Take the spare key for the studio, in case I should be gone already, so you can at least take the posters. ...If it's alright with you-"

"No, Grantaire if it's alright with you. I do not mean it as a repayment. But as a date. As long as you agree of course."

Grantaire looked at him still, the brushes and paints in his arms forgotten.  
Enjolras actually seemed nervous, which did not help Grantaire with trying to keep calm.

"Grantaire, could you please say something."

"I, um, I do not have time," he managed at some point and as Enjolras' face darkened a little, he quickly added, "Not in the morning, then I'll already be driving my group to the competition. I would love to go out with you, I mean as a date, as in actually going out. -Just don't get yourself arrested."

Enjolras looked at him mildly amused, promised to not unnecessarily debate with the police and then helped him clean up the room. He surprised Grantaire again when he hugged him before he took the spare key, wished his students a great performance and finally said goodbye.  
However, he turned around again, brushed Grantaire's cheek with his lips, barely even kissing him.

"See you, petit danceur."


End file.
